A Daughter of the Snows eBook

Corliss, having terminated a buzz with a Miss Mortimer
on the decadence of the French symbolists, encountered
Del Bishop. But the pocket-miner remembered
him at once from the one glimpse he had caught of Corliss
standing by his tent-door in Happy Camp. Was
almighty obliged to him for his night’s hospitality
to Miss Frona, seein’ as he’d ben side-tracked
down the line; that any kindness to her was a kindness
to him; and that he’d remember it, by God, as
long as he had a corner of a blanket to pull over
him. Hoped it hadn’t put him out.
Miss Frona’d said that bedding was scarce,
but it wasn’t a cold night (more blowy than
crisp), so he reckoned there couldn’t ‘a’
ben much shiverin’. All of which struck
Corliss as perilous, and he broke away at the first
opportunity, leaving the pocket-miner yearning for
the door.

But Dave Harney, who had not come by mistake, avoided
gluing himself to the first chair. Being an
Eldorado king, he had felt it incumbent to assume
the position in society to which his numerous millions
entitled him; and though unused all his days to social
amenities other than the out-hanging latch-string
and the general pot, he had succeeded to his own satisfaction
as a knight of the carpet. Quick to take a cue,
he circulated with an aplomb which his striking garments
and long shambling gait only heightened, and talked
choppy and disconnected fragments with whomsoever
he ran up against. The Miss Mortimer, who spoke
Parisian French, took him aback with her symbolists;
but he evened matters up with a goodly measure of
the bastard lingo of the Canadian voyageurs,
and left her gasping and meditating over a proposition
to sell him twenty-five pounds of sugar, white or brown.
But she was not unduly favored, for with everybody
he adroitly turned the conversation to grub, and then
led up to the eternal proposition. “Sugar
or bust,” he would conclude gayly each time and
wander on to the next.

But he put the capstone on his social success by asking
Frona to sing the touching ditty, “I Left My
Happy Home for You.” This was something
beyond her, though she had him hum over the opening
bars so that she could furnish the accompaniment.
His voice was more strenuous than sweet, and Del
Bishop, discovering himself at last, joined in raucously
on the choruses. This made him feel so much better
that he disconnected himself from the chair, and when
he finally got home he kicked up his sleepy tent-mate
to tell him about the high time he’d had over
at the Welse’s. Mrs. Schoville tittered
and thought it all so unique, and she thought it so
unique several times more when the lieutenant of Mounted
Police and a couple of compatriots roared “Rule
Britannia” and “God Save the Queen,”
and the Americans responded with “My Country,
’Tis of Thee” and “John Brown.”
Then big Alec Beaubien, the Circle City king, demanded
the “Marseillaise,” and the company broke
up chanting “Die Wacht am Rhein” to the
frosty night.